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Barry MacDonnell's
Toolbox for WordPerfect

Macros, tips, and templates for Corel® WordPerfect® for Windows®
© Copyright 1996-2024 by Barry MacDonnell. All Rights Reserved.

Page updated Feb 15, 2012

Extract the current document's Summary data (as shown in File, Properties) and insert it as a block of text at the end of the document

Download SUMMARY.ZIP (v1.02; 06/14/05; 11,618 bytes)

Compatible with WordPerfect 8 and later versions

WordPerfect 11 users: See important information about using macros in the first release of WP11 (11.0.0.233) at the top of this page.

Downloading, Documentation, Modifications, and Support

This is a macro that inserts all the information found in the File, Properties, Summary tab on a separate page (the default) at the end of the document, ready for printing.

OPERATION

The macro starts by looking for a paired (or selected) bookmark named "SummaryInfoBookmark" that would have been inserted by a previous play of this macro. If it finds the bookmark, it block-deletes the material between the bookmark codes -- i.e., all the Summary information inserted during the last play of the macro. Then the macro creates the summary in a temporary file, inserts that file at the end of the current document, then deletes the temporary file from the disk.

This method helps ensure that only the most recent Summary information is inserted at the end of the document. Therefore, the macro can be played multiple times without producing multiple summaries.

OPTIONS

Several options can be set in the macro's User Modification Area.

You may be able to use this macro as a template macro (perhaps triggered just before print time; see the comment at the end of the macro's code for information on how to do this or click here).

NOTES and CAVEATS

If you have never edited or changed the File, Properties, Summary dialog in the current document, there will be no Summary text block created (other than the document's filename, if that option was chosen in the User Modification Area).

This is apparently due to the internal coding of the DocSummarySaveAs() command, which "knows" whether the Summary dialog has been modified or not -- and if not, it doesn't generate any output.

In this event, a message will appear to let you know that no summary data exists. The message will automatically disappear after a few seconds. This allows the macro to be used in an unattended fashion -- such as a template macro.

You can easily modify the macro's code to require it to pause for user confirmation before dismissing the message by changing the Prompt command(s), beginning at about line #130. (Normally, there is no reason to do this.)

You can also adjust the Wait() command if you want to adjust the time the message is displayed on your system.

More information of using the Summary feature was posted on WordPerfect Universe (here) by Charles Cork.

"...I think that this [setting creation and revision dates] is a matter of activating and using the document summary feature, which can be done automatically by selecting "Create summary on save/exit" in Tools > Settings > Summary.

If the user elects to use this feature, WP will save this and other chosen categories of information. To automate the process of generating summary information, WP inserts the User's name as author and typist, and today's date as the creation date. If you look at the WP file through a hex or text editor, the text that is entered into the document summary dialog will appear just above the beginning of the text that appears in the normal operating window.

But unless the user affirmatively chooses to use this feature, WP will not save the information in the file, even information (like the creation date and name of the author/typist) that it automatically generates. So even when the user looks at the Summary Tab of an old file, WP still offers today's date as the creation date, not for the purpose of informing the user of a fact about this file, but to facilitate document summary data entry.

The document summary feature's location under the File > Properties menu item gives the impression that WP automatically stores information about the file, just as the operating system does, but unless the user elects to save the summary information, it is not saved. To avoid confusion, it should either be separated from "File Properties" or otherwise more clearly labeled. Those of us who do not use the document summary information should simply ignore it."